The term “habitat” first appeared as in Carl von Linnés’ Systema Naturae (1735), which laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature as a structuring principle of the taxonomy of the living world. A habitat usually denotes the environment in which a reproductive population of organisms can live, occupying a special space between species and individual organic entity. Michel Foucault’s almost unknown book, Politiques de l’habitat (1800–1850) from 1977 analyzes the habitat as part of the spatial politics of medicine in the first part of the nineteenth century as a tool of normalization. In an interview that preceded the new edition of Bentham’s Panopticon text, Foucault argues that the organization of space, especially architecture in the eighteenth century, became explicitly connected to the “problems of population, health, and the town planning ... a whole history of spaces – which would be at the same time a history of powers – remains to be written, from the grand strategies of geopolitics to the little tactics of the habitat, institutional architecture from the classroom to the design of hospitals, passing via economic and political institutions ... anchorage in space is an economic-political form which needs to be studied in detail.” (Elden 2007)Within the CIAM context, Le Corbusier brought up the term “habitat” for the first time when he gave an introductory speech at CIAM 7 in Bergamo, claiming he would develop a Charter of Habitat without further explanation what this charter might be. (Mumford 2000: 192) In this context Le Corbusier developed a presentation tool, the grid system. The goal of the CIAM Grid was to present and compare different modern town planning projects according to the CIAM categories: living, working, transport, and leisure. At the next CIAM 8 in Hoddesdon, which was themed “the heart of the city,” the Dutch Opbouw Group suggested an outline of principles for the Habitat Charter. However, two congresses were solely dedicated to the Habitat and the formulation of the charter. One of these, in Aix en Provence in 1953, was the largest of all CIAM congresses, while the other was a major interjectional meeting in 1952 in Sigtuna, Sweden with more than 250 members in attendance. Nevertheless, over a period of 10 years the CIAM members were unable to reach a consensus about what form and nature the Habitat should be. This failure ultimately led to the final breakup of the organization in 1959. One of the first triggers for a conflict was the question of how the French term habitat should be translated into English and German, as it meant both the living conditions of any creature and “dwelling” or “settlement.” A second debate was directed at the content of the idea of the Habitat. “The Habitat is clearly an element of living space – Corbu is not sure if ‘urbanisme’ is the correct word – but how it should be organized with the other elements is less and less clear. [...]” (Mumford 2000: 218) At the 1952 Sigtuna meeting it was documented that the focus of the Habitat was to be directed at the everyday space in which both families and working women live, and that it was not restricted to the apartment, but extended to social commercial health, educational, and administrative services. (Mumford 2000: 219)In 1953 at CIAM IX in Aix-en-Provence, two grids had already caused disruption: the Habitat du Plus Grand Nombre Grid and the Bidonville Mahieddine Grid – both designed by architects who were active in North Africa. These studies no longer presented modern urban projects, but rather analyzed the bidonvilles of Casablanca and Algiers as fabrics of social practices. A third grid that attracted attention was the Urban Re-identification Grid by Alison and Peter Smithson, which analyzed, in a similar fashion, daily life in the working class neighborhood of Bethnal Green in London. This understanding of the built environment through the notion of social practice caused a radical shift in the modern movement’s conception of dwelling. The grids included not just quantitative but also qualitative methods. With this epistemological shift the younger generation tried to replace the earlier understandings of dwelling as a machine à habiter with the notion of Habitat. For Bodiansky, Candilis, and the Moroccan group, Habitat meant the idea of housing as an evolutionary, adaptive process, especially suited to local climate and technology, beginning with the provision of basic infrastructure and partially self-built housing and evolving – with an expected rising standard of living – toward more advanced housing solutions like Le Corbusier’s Unité d´Habitation. The concept of Habitat emphasized the immediate surrounding of the dwelling, but the British group Mars objected to the idea of a universal charter based on the assumption that different societies and places display the same needs. Jaqueline Thyrwitt, Luis Sert, and Siegfried Giedeon met in Long Island for CIAM X and prepared a program consisting of the points below: “Walking radius as a universal problem; Means of expressing the connection and interaction between the human cell and the environment; Necessary degrees of privacy; Value of vertical integration of age groups; Advantages of compact planning versus continuous scatter; Relation of the Habitat to the core; Means of expressing this continuity with the past; Need for gaiety in the Habitat.” (Mumford 2000: 226) Discussions on these topics were to result in a book including the finished charter.
But a Charter of Habitat, similar to the Athens Charter, was never completed. After the end of CIAM as an organizational structure, these debates promulgated in a global exchange of planning ideas through direct and indirect connections with international organizations (eg. Ford Foundation, Delos Symposia) and led to the UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat 1976). After the dissolution of CIAM, Jaap Bakema, as a former member of the Dutch delegation of CIAM, established “The Post Box for the Development of Habitat” in 1960 to maintain international correspondence including ties with the UN and UNESCO. But in a report on CIAM 8 in 1951, a meeting that was attended by delegates from Japan for the first time (Tange and Kunio Maekawa), it was already noted that CIAM had been collaborating with the Housing Sub-Committee for the UN Economic Commission for Europe since 1947. The fact that the Charter of Habitat corresponded with UN concerns over housing problems arising from ‘the current needs of a growing population’ is evident from the many references made to this concern in CIAM discussions beginning in the early 1950s. Influences of CIAM’s habitat debates can be traced to Groupe d’Espace et de l’Architecture Mobile (GEAM), founded 1958, which reorganized in 1965 as the Groupe Internationale de l’Architecture Prospective (GIAP), and the Japanese Metabolists’ manifesto Metabolism 1960, for the World Design Conference in Tokyo. Sarah Deyong argues on the effect of the habitat debates: “Through their various teaching positions and invitations on the lecture circuit (Friedman, van Eyck, Bakema, Maki, Tange, and others all taught at several universities in the United States and in Europe, sometimes at the same time), they would influence an entire post-war generation of younger architects around the world, including the British Archigram Group, the students of Günther Feuerstein’s Clubseminars at the Technical University in Vienna, and the Italian ‘radicals,’ Archizoom and Superstudio.” (Deyong 2001: 123)Since the 1960s, new forms of spatial organization, such as those found in Safdie’s residential complex Habitat in Montreal, have been increasingly inspired by local building methods that were once considered pre-modern or traditional. Tourist resorts have also been influenced by the Habitat concept and its aesthetics. Other projects from this period, including Yasmeen Lari’s social housing development in Lahore, took into account the local population and their ways of dwelling. Sources:Elden, Stuart (2007): “Strategy, Medicine and Habitat: Foucault in 1976.” In: Jeremy Crampton/ Stuart Elden, Space, knowledge and power: Foucault and geography, Hampshire:Burlingtom. 67-81Deyong,Sarah (2001): Planetary habitat: the origins of a phantom movement. The Journal of Architecture, Vol. 6, Issue 2/2001. 113-128Mumford, Eric (2000): The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: MIT Press. (CL, MvO)